Krystal heard him. “The cops are there?”

“Lauren hit the panic button. Jonas and I were out pickin’ up her Christmas present. We’re back. She’s gone.”

Silence and then Tate felt her terror coming through the line.

“No, Tate, no,” she whispered and he heard the tremor in her voice.

“What’s goin’ on?” Tate heard Bubba ask, his voice firm but distant, coming through Krys’s phone.

“Who’s not there, Krys?” Tate repeated.

“Tate –” she started.

“Who’s not f**kin’ there!” he roared.

He heard her phone jostling as he heard footsteps coming down the back steps.

“Tate?” Bubba was on the phone.

“Lauren’s been nabbed, it’s someone she knew. Look around, Bub, who’s not there?”

“Fuck, f**k, f**kin’ shit!” Bubba shouted. “Hold on, I’m doin’ a scan.”

“Jackson,” Frank said as he approached Tate.

“Give me a minute,” Tate said to Frank.

“Tate, buddy, no forced entry,” Frank said quietly.

Tate speared Frank with a look.

“Give me a f**king minute, Frank,” Tate ground out.

“Dalton,” Bubba said in his ear.

Dalton. Dalton was on when he’d fired Tonia but she was local, he had the rest of the night after the bar closed to pick her up and play with her.

Dalton was one of them. Good-looking. Easy smile. Not tall, not built but still lean and strong definitely bigger than the petite Sunny and what she was used to with Shambles. Lived local but not all his life. Moved there a few years ago. But outside of the fact he was a good bartender and dependable employee, Tate didn’t know one f**king thing about him.

Totally fit the f**king profile.

“Go to the office, check the back schedules, timecards. Find out if he was on the night Neet was murdered and if he was on the night that girl got done in Chantelle.”

“You remember dates?” Bubba asked and Tate knew he was on the move.

“Check the internet. Get Krys on it,” Tate ordered.

“Don’t have broadband to the bar, bud,” Bubba said quietly, he was in the hall.

“Someone in that bar has got to have a phone with internet access and if they don’t, we got a f**kin’ phone, make calls. Find the dates, check the schedules, I want info in ten minutes, Bubba, faster, you can do it. And pull his application, fax it to me.”

“Got it,” Bubba replied and Tate heard the disconnect so he flipped his phone closed.

“Dalton?” Frank asked.

“Jonas!” Tate bellowed. “Come down here!”

“Tate, Dalton?” Frank repeated.

“Call the Feds,” Tate demanded instead of answering as his son ran down the stairs.

“Dad?” Jonas asked.

“Computer, Bub. Go fire it up. Now,” Tate ordered and Jonas took off toward his office.

A couple more officers were coming down the stairs as Frank kept talking.

“Tate, buddy, now think about this. This might not be what you think. It might not be May-December. It’s Christmas, Laurie could be doing anything. I get you’re tweaked, Neeta, Tonia. But Lauren isn’t his type and you cast suspicion on someone in something like this –”

His vision got blurry again and his hands clenched into fists as his body leaned into Frank.

“You hesitate one more f**kin’ time when I tell you to do something, I swear to f**kin’ Christ, I’ll rip your goddamned heart out. Call the f**king Feds!”

Frank stared at him for half a second, then lifted his hand to the radio at his shoulder, pressed the button and muttered, “Dispatch, we need a 10-18 call to Special Agent Tambo. Suspected May-December activity at Jackson residence. Out.”

Tate heard Jacinda in Dispatch reply with a shocked, “Jackson residence? Out,” but he wasn’t listening. He was walking to his office.

* * * * *

Lauren

“You shouldn’t have fought me, Laurie,” Dalton whispered. “Why’d you fight me?”

I tasted my cloth gag and blood.

This was because I’d woken up in Dalton’s truck, sorted out my head, realized I wasn’t bound and then opened the door, rolling out to the earth even though the truck was speeding through the hills. This did not feel good and I suspected I did myself damage but I still got up and did my best to make a run for it, straight through the spiky pine and leafless aspen of the hills surrounding where Sunny had been attacked.

Dalton had caught me. He knew those woods. I didn’t.

Then he’d beaten the shit out of me no matter how hard I tried to fight back, he bested me and dragged me back to his truck. He cuffed my wrist to the door and then he’d driven me here.

Here.

I closed my eyes and turned my head away because, in a line, their hair was in plastic baggies nailed to the walls.

I saw Tonia’s gleaming black locks, Sunny’s shorn, frizzy, ash blonde hair.

And Neeta’s thick, lush dark brown.

I felt the sick slide up the back of my throat.

“He lives up there Laurie… bet my f**kin’ life on it, he lives up there. He knows that spot. He knows those woods. Bet my f**kin’ life he lives up there. He hunts up there. That’s his space. It’s his.”

Tate knew where I was, he had to know. He’d find me, he could do anything for me, he’d find me.

Please, God, let him find me.

“I didn’t want it to be you,” Dalton told me. “I didn’t. Fought it Laurie. But you should have married him before you moved in. Good girls get married, Laurie. They get married before they move in and let men touch them. I could handle it but then you let Jonas live with you. You and Tate, f**kin’ each other constantly, right when his boy was there. His boy. I see it. See the way you two are together. Barely able to keep your hands off each other. Your tongues down each other’s throats every chance you get. And I heard about it. You goin’ down on him in the mornin’.” He sucked in breath. “Jonas could see you, he could hear you. And I know he did. He did. Hedidhedidhedid.”

I swallowed back the bile then yelped behind my gag as I heard the fabric tearing and my head snapped around to look at him.

I was on a dirty mattress on the floor, the mattress covered in brown stains. Blood. Old blood. Tonia all but died here. Neeta did die there. And God knew who else.